


Boredom is Not Ironic.

by catsnore



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, awkward and terrible raps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catsnore/pseuds/catsnore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davesprite is bored, so John helps him come up with fun things to do. Emotions were not a part of the plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

This blows. Getting stuck on this ship was a pain in your feathery, nonexistent ass. Not that getting hit by a meteor would have been any better, but at least it would’ve been more exciting and badass than this shit. You guess you’re grateful to Jade for saving your life, but it turned out that they’d totally forgotten about you. Man, that was awesome. But whatever, you’re cool and you didn’t make a big issue about it. You are the goddamn master of cool, even though your wing is still fucking healing and that blows too.  Being a sprite makes you pretty damn important, not to mention even more awesome than you were before. You didn’t even know that was possible, but it was. You try to forget that the “real” Dave is god tier now.

You’ve been on this ship for exactly 4 months, 18 days, 9 hours, and 41 minutes, and you’re bored as hell. You actually wish you didn’t know the exact amount of time you’ve been here, because it means you know exactly how much longer you’re going to be stuck here. Jade and John just derp around in blissful oblivion, and meanwhile you feel the seconds tick by at what seems to be an ever-slowing tempo.

As for things to do, you spent weeks making a bed pile out of random shit because you couldn’t pass up the chance for an ironic nest, honestly. Seriously, a thirteen year old cool dude slash bird thing making a nest on a huge yellow ship flying through space? That shit’s definitely ironic. You ignore the fact that birds only make nests when they’re also making eggs and focus on the irony.

It’s not like you even need to sleep anyway, which is the irony of the situation. It sucks, because that’s just one less way to pass the time. John and Jade sleep all the time too. You’re absolutely sure they sleep at least nine hours at a time. As the resident authority on time, you think they spend way too much time being unconscious when they could be awake doing more important things. Like entertaining you. Most of the nights they’re sleeping (Can you even call them nights? There’s not really a sun that sets or anything) you chill with the nakodiles and salamanders, even though they’re shitty conversation makers. They can’t even rap. The majority of the conversations go as follows:

“Nak nak nak nak nak!”

“You mean we’re on a gigantic yellow ship traversing the boundaries of space and time? You’re shitting me. Are you sure?”

“Nak nak nak nak nak!”

“Pretty sure you must be smoking something, man. There’s nothing like that around here. Yeah, you’re full of shit.”

“Glub glub!”

“For the last time, I don’t lay eggs. Jesus.”

“Glub!”

“Goddamn it, in my face again? Dude. Stop.”

Yeah for some reason they’re not the most intellectually stimulating conversations. Jesus christ you’re starting to sound like Rose. You need to do something about that like, yesterday.


	2. Chapter 1: Painting Planets

You have been lying on your back in your nest for 74 minutes. There are 410 bolts in the ceiling that you’ve counted so far. You lost track a couple times, but whatever you just started over from the beginning. There’s a SB&HJ comic on the wall that you drew with your sprite powers, which you’ve discovered work on mostly any flat surface. Good to know.

“Four hundred eleven, four hundred twelve-”

“Hi, Davesprite!”

The door slams against the wall with a clang and you jump. Goddamn it, how does Egbert always manage to sneak up on you? And now you’ve lost track of where you were on the ceiling. Fuck.

“Ok, wow, you’re drawing on the walls. This is worse than I thought.” He crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his hand. His hood falls off his head and settles on his shoulders. You have no idea why he likes to wear it up. It is not cool at all. He looks like a dork.

“Inspiration struck, and the wall was there. It was practically begging to be touched by my godlike sense of irony.” You lost a few feathers when he scared you. No, wait, he didn’t scare you, you’re never scared. Who the fuck could even scare you? Not him. “This is serious art, Egbert.”

“Well it looks shitty.”

“Fuck you, you can’t appreciate its beauty.” Maybe drawing on the wall would be a good new time-waster. Except it doesn’t really count as wasting time because you don’t have anything more important to do. Too bad you can’t draw on people. Egbert suffers from a severe lack of orange scribbles on his face. You’re not going to bring that up to him, though, because you’re pretty sure he’ll end up pulling shit like that on you, and that is unacceptable.

“You need to get out of this room, dude.” He comes over and floats up the side of your nest mountain. Yes, awesome, another “god-tier-is-the-best” reminder, sweet.

“Why? It’s not like there’s anything exciting going on outside. Unless the salamanders are making a circus or something. God knows there are enough freaks on this thing to make a goddamn circus.” You take a ball out of your pile and toss it back and forth.

“No, they’re not doing that. We’re going to do something fun together!” He grins.

You were not expecting that. He’s barely paid attention to you these last four months (4 months, 19 days, 5 hours, and 08 minutes). You raise your eyebrows. “What the hell, Egbert.” That was supposed to be a question. Maybe.

“What?” He’s still doing that stupid thing where he smiles.

“What the fuck do you even want to do? Bake a cake or something? Cause there’s no way that’s happening. That’s way too fucking domestic: Striders don’t cook.”

“If you’d shut up for a second and let me _talk_ ,” he cuts in, “I’d tell you that I have some pranking ideas that I need help for!” He sits down on _your_ nest. You did not know you would be this territorial about this piece of shit, wow. Fucking bird instincts. You successfully resist the urge to push him the fuck off.

“The pranking god is asking for help? Shit, where are the television cameras when you need them?” Actually you really would like to do something like that. You must be desperate if you’re willing to do something that Egbert likes, jesus. It has nothing to do with the excited way he’s smiling at you. Not at all.

He laughs sarcastically. “Very funny. You are such a barrel of laughs today. Let’s go, I need your help.” He stands up and jumps off the nest, landing on the floor with a soft thump. It is kind of impressive how good he’s getting at his powers. Not that you’re going to say anything to him about that. You follow him down.

“Fine.”

\---

 

“This is a stupid idea. Why am I going along with this?”

“Because if we do it right, Jade’s going to freak out! It’ll be so funny!”

The Plan is to paint some rubber balls like the five planets Jade has in her sylladex and do various things like dropping them off the side of the ship where she can see. Egbert wanted your help because he couldn’t paint them himself without smudging them, so he currently has one hovering in midair while you try to paint it. You are unironically terrible at painting. Which is fine, because painting is not cool at all. In fact, you’re pretty sure you’re cooler because you can’t paint. But here you are with a tiny paintbrush in your hand, trying to paint the Land of Wind and Shade.

“She’ll never freak out about this. She’s part omnipotent devil dog now, remember? She’ll see right through it and then I’m going to look stupid for it,” you grumble.

“Oh, do you think we could make her fetch one?” The ball rotates slowly between his hands. As you paint, you can feel the gentle breeze that’s keeping it afloat.

“That is a terrible plan and will never work.” This obviously means you have to try it, for the irony. “Could you try and hold it still? It’s starting to turn into the Land of Splotches and Blurs.” You fully intend to blame all its shittiness on him. It’s not even close to the same kind of quality shittiness that you produce.

“Could you try not being a shitty painter?” he counters. He moves his hands to direct the breeze at a different angle, though, which does help keep it more stable.

“Shut up.”

He laughs and blows on your face, aaaaaand now your hair is messed up. Looks like Egbert needs some paint on his face. Before he can react, you reach up and drag your brush along his cheek. That was more satisfying than it probably should have been.

He gasps. One thing you can definitely say about Egbert - he really puts effort into his facial expressions. So uncool. You feel yourself start to smirk at how uncool he is. He just makes it too easy to make fun of him, seriously.

“Oh, shit, how did that happen? Sorry, bro, that was an accident.” Smile gone? Check. Deadpan voice? Check. Poker face? Check. You don’t think you could be less sorry if you tried. God his face is _priceless_. You need a camera.

He stares openmouthed at you for 3.2 seconds before this really evil-looking grin starts to spread across his face. “Oh, it’s ok, Dave.” He just called you Dave. Holy shit. Like, Dave Dave. Dave for real, not Davespr- There’s a gust of wind and the small cup of blue paint is now on your face. “Whoops! Hehehe.”

That little bastard, distracting you with your name so he can prank you back! Oh, it is on now. The blue paint falls to the ground with a plop. You grab the piece of shit rubber ball and chuck it at him, printing “look I’m a douche” on his forehead, with a nice little red mark to follow, for sure. Ok it doesn’t say that in English, but that’s what it stands for.

He laughs and smears his hands in the paint before wiping them all over your goddamn face and neck and oh damn it it’s in your feathers too. Shit, that’ll take forever to clean out. He smashes your shades into the bridge of your nose ow, shit. Blue streaks your vision as the paint gets smeared _all over your lenses_. Oh, no he didn’t. “That’s it, Egbert.” Your cool voice does not survive through this sentence and you end up laughing a little.

The gloves- and glasses- are off. For real. The table has metaphorically been flipped, and now various metaphoric objects are flying everywhere. Well, so are literal objects, because this is officially _war_. You are going to make him rue the day he ever got paint on your shades.

\---

  
“What did you guys do?

The two of you are splayed out on the ground. The walls, floor, and ceiling are covered in paint, as are both of you. The former Land of Wind and Shade has become the Land of Mud and Shit. And also Pieces of Dirt, because it was rolling around on the ground before it dried.

John is laughing his ass off beside you. Damn, your shades are fucking opaque with all the paint all over them. You prop yourself up on your elbows and look at Jade, who’s still staring in shock. “We strifed with paint. You totally missed out, man. Better luck next time, or something.”

“Yeah, it looks like you had a lot of fun!” She looks down at you, starting to smile. Her ears perk up now that she isn’t as surprised about the situation. Huh, maybe she isn’t super omnipotent. That prank could actually work. Except now it won’t because she knows about the paint. You’re going to blame this on Egbert too. “Is that a smile on your face, Davesprite?” she giggles.

Holy shit, it actually is. An honest-to-goodness, not-making-fun-of-anyone smile. You can’t remember the last time you’ve had one. Huh. Weird. Of course, now that she’s drawn attention to it, you’ve stopped.

John sits up and wipes his eyes. “You should’ve gotten here earlier! He even laughed a couple of times.” He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down. You take advantage of the opportunity and throw his shoe at him. Jade doesn’t need to know that you can laugh. That’s basically slander. Come to think of it, John doesn’t need to know that you can laugh either. Goddamn it, you are the worst at keeping your poker face. You really need to work on that.

Maybe next time.


	3. Chapter 2: Flowers and Feelings

“You don’t think they’ll actually fall for this, do you?”

“It would still be funny to try!”

“How many shitty disguises do you even have?”

“Oh, jeeze, do you even want to know?”

“… Yes.”

John adjusts the Groucho Marx glasses on his face and looks over at you. “I have enough.” Half of his grin is hidden by the stupid fake nose hanging off his face. “Come on, you’ve gotta let me pin the rose in your hair!” His mouth flattens in concentration as he clips the fake flower by your bangs. You ask yourself again why you’re letting him do this to you. You look supremely uncool right now.

“This isn’t even a disguise. It’s a fucking flower in my hair.” You cross your arms and grumble, but you’re not moving away. You should really do that. But no, you already said you’d help him and you can’t go back on your word to your best bros; that would be shitty.

“And your shades are off too! It’ll totally confuse them.” Your shades have been out of commission because evidently that paint was forged in the depths of hell because it is taking forever to get off of your lenses. And there is no way you’re going around with blue and green and shit all over your lenses. That would be stupider than not wearing them at all.

“I haven’t worn them for two days, you derp.”

“Nice comeback. And haven’t you noticed that they have no idea who you are?” He steps back with a smug grin on his face. His facial expressions will never not be ridiculous. And that stupid pair of glasses is just making it difficult for you to keep from laughing.

“I’m a bright orange, floating, bird sprite-thing. How many of those even exist? I’m a special fucking snowflake, Egbert. There’s no way they don’t recognize me.” You don’t even point out the fact that if they don’t know who you are, there’s no reason for you to be wearing a big dumb flower in your hair anyway.

He reaches up and adjusts the floppy pink rose. “Well in any case, now you’re pretty! Even though that shade totally clashes with your hair.” What is that pose he’s doing why is he talking like that? He’s talking like some kind of gay fashion designer, complete with the floppy hand thing. No, John. Stop. He is so fucking uncool, you can feel your cool points slowly slip away with every second you spend with him. Your cool gauge is nearly empty, but you guess it was already down there when you tried rapping with the iguanas last week.

 

_“Thip thip thip!”_

_“Floating four fucking months on this godforsaken ship.”_

_“Thip thip thip thip!”_

_“Going crazy, been feeling like my mind’s about to slip_

_“Right off-”_

_“Thip!”_

_“Naknaknaknak!”_

_“God damn it. Fuck. What the hell am I doing?”_

_“Thip! Thip thip!”_

_“Give me those shades back, dickhead.”_

 

Wow sometimes you surprise yourself with how much of a tool you are. Maybe you are just as uncool as John is. No, you can’t let yourself think that again. Just thinking of those words sends a shiver down your fucking spine.

He starts to play with your hair like he’s fixing it, which is really fucking weird. Since when did he have hair-touching privileges? Last time you checked, he only had disguise-making privileges, and those only included putting the fake rose in your hair. Definitely not hairstyling. “Hands off, Egbert. My hair is fine. You can play beautician with Jade, not me.”

“I’m just changing your hair for the disguise, Dave.” He looks you up and down with another smug smile. Fuck he put your hair in a faux hawk.

“I refuse to wear a faux hawk. I’m not from the 90’s.” You flatten it right away. Your hair is staying the same as it usually is. Except for that flower, which is ironic enough to stay. You’ve never had any shit like this before in your hair. How did he even get it?

“Oh, fine, but it looks less disguise-y.” He frowns a little. Is he pouting? Shit that is so… cute. What. Egbert is not cute, you refuse to attach that label onto him. You have been fantastic at reigning all those things in for four months, you are not about to start slipping now. “Let’s go, I bet most of them are awake by now!” He runs out of the room. Still not cute.

You float after him. This idea is even stupider than the last one. Seriously, how does he come up with this stuff. There’s something weird about how his brain works or something. Why are you thinking about how cute that is that’s crazy. It’s not like you like him or anything. Baka.

And now you’ve finally become an anime.

In all reality, though, you do actually. Like him, you mean. Yeah, that’s definitely a thing. You try not to let yourself think about it, though. Since he likes girls, and you’re pretty sure he doesn’t even think about you as a _person_ , let alone someone to like. That’s ok, though. You’re just glad to be here with him. Oh god that sounds so lame. You’re just going to pretend that little inner monologue about your feelings didn’t just happen. At all. Yeah, you don’t have emotions again.

The two of you pass through the paint-stained room where you tried getting your first prank together. It’s like an omen, or something. This is destined to end in failure. “So ok, we’re just going to mess with them by popping our disguises on and off! It’ll totally confuse them.” He snickers, his face scrunching up behind those ridiculous glasses he’s wearing. You can’t help but roll your eyes at his enthusiasm. He has a nice laugh. God fucking damn it what is it with you and feelings today?

“No way, it’s never going to work.”

“Ok, who’s the master prankster here, Dave?” He called you Dave again. Your heart is not fluttering at all. Actually you’re more afraid he’s going to cover your face in paint again than anything else. “You or me?”

“Well it’s obviously not you, since you’re not a master at anything. So it’s me by default. I know; sprite powers and shit. It makes my observations pretty fucking important.” You are not going to let him win this time. “Magical sprite powers plus time powers equal best at everything. I would fucking know.” You float in front of him and give him a smirk.

“Yeah, well, I’m a god-tier, so…” he trails off with an equally proud-looking smirk, and even starts to float too. Fuck, you should’ve known he was going to say that. Why did you even humor him by getting into this argument?

“Without me, you wouldn’t have survived long enough to make it to god-tier, remember? What kind of master prankster lets himself get tricked by a blind chick that eats chalk?” you snap. Wait. Fuck you shouldn’t have said that.

He looks surprised for 5 seconds and lands on the ground. Fuck, why are you such an idiot? You are going to ruin prank day. Much to your relief, he starts to smile again.

“Still made it, though.”

“You’re an asshole.” You lightly punch his upper arm, not even caring that the relief is evident on your face. For a second you were actually worried that he was going to react badly to that. You should’ve known better, he never gets upset about shit like that. Even though you act like you’re the cool one, he has a way better handle on his emotions than you do. Man.

He giggles. “Yeah, but what would you do without me? Be sad and lonely, that’s what.”

You’d protest, but he’s exactly right.

\--

You realize when John starts popping his disguise on and off that you don’t have a sylladex, and can therefore not really participate in this prank. Was this part of the plan? He just wanted you to stand there with a fake rose in your hair so he could mess with the salamanders by himself? Now that you think about it, you didn’t really have a way to go back to normal, since your shades are out of commission. You’re suddenly aware of the fact that he did do this on purpose. He even mentioned that you didn’t have your shades earlier. That little twerp. He ended up winning this time. You’re going to have to draw penises on his face while he sleeps or something. That’ll teach him.

At least he was right, though. They’re definitely fooled by it. It’s like he’s playing peek-a-boo with a bunch of two-year-olds. Except you’re pretty sure you had a larger vocabulary when you were two, and you blew a lot less spit bubbles. You have no idea how long he’s going to stand there taking his disguise on and off, but he’s just as entertained as they are. At least, if the crazy giggling is any indication of that.

You glance over in the corner to where the turtles are shaking in fear. They have no idea where this strange, mustachioed man is coming from, and they don’t like him. He keeps taking the nice boy in blue away with his huge nose and caterpillar eyebrows. They hate the mustachioed man, but they fear punishment if they rebel. It’s difficult, being stuck between a rock and a hard place. They don’t know how to react. Their silence does little to mask their metaphorical sobs of terror.

Wow that was a tangent if you’ve ever seen one. You sound like Rose again, inwardly dictating fanfiction about the stupid turtles like they’re suddenly the most important fucking things on the planet. You frown at them and they shiver again. Stupid turtles. You let out a soft caw of frustration and pull the rose out of your hair. You want to pin it on a turtle’s head, but for some dumb reason turtles don’t have hair. Well now what are you supposed to do with it? You don’t feel like putting it back in because it’s pissing you off too. Instead of pinning it back in your hair, you toss it towards the turtles, who visibly jump and then scurry out of the room. “Take that, fuckers,” you mutter. You snicker halfheartedly, but it’s really not fun to just bully the shell-shocked turtles.

Oh god, _shell_ shocked. And they have _shells_. You are so funny, you can’t handle it. Actually, you mentally replace ‘funny’ with ‘bored and annoyed.’ One of the iguanas finally stops paying attention to John, who is currently floating upside down and flipping between three different disguises. You watch as it waddles over to your rose and sniffs it. “Hey, get away from that shit.” It starts to pick it up in its mouth and you fly over with a whoosh. Your sword is in your hand and you wave it at the iguana menacingly, just to scare it away. The iguana lets out a surprised “thip!” and drops the rose before running back towards John’s group. Fuck, are iguanas even supposed to eat flowers? You thought they ate bugs or some shit. Gross, it’s all wet. You pick it up with only two fingers and kind of dangle it so you can inspect it without being in danger of dripping iguana saliva all over yourself. Maybe you can wash it off, or soak it in water, or something.

That sounds like a good idea. “Hey, John, I’m gonna wash this off. Have fun playing with the other kids, sweetheart. Mummy will be back later. Remember that biting isn’t nice.” You’re already heading towards the big locker room on the ship where you three usually shower. “I don’t want to come back to find another kid bleeding this time. Stay away from the peanuts and shit.”

“What did you say? You were mumbling.” Suddenly he’s hovering beside you, still upside down, and peeking over his glasses at you. His disguises are gone, so he’s probably done with the stupid “prank” he was doing. He’s holding a salamander, but you’re not sure if it’s Casey or not. You can’t fucking tell any of them apart. He’s practically grinning from ear to ear and you can’t be annoyed at him for not listening to you. Most of what you were saying was dumb anyway, and you tend to ramble sometimes.

“Never mind. I’m going to wash this in the sink so I can give it back sans iguana cooties.”

“Oh, so you’re leaving? Are you sure you don’t want to keep pranking them?” Oh, guess he wasn’t done. You can see the playful spark in his eyes when he mentions the prank. He totally knows you were never involved in this, and he probably knows you’ve figured that out too.

“Don’t lie, Egbert, you were pranking me with this.” You assemble your skeptical face. “You knew I couldn’t get in and out of this disguise, which was just a shitty pink flower the entire time.” The tone of your voice is even and calm, since you guess you aren’t really upset about it anyway. He could’ve done something worse. This was a pretty tame prank as far as Egbertian pranks go.

He giggles and sets the salamander down. “Whoops, you got me.”

“I bet you just wanted to touch my hair cause it’s fucking awesome.”

“What? No way. Your hair is lame, anyway.” He snorts. Is that a hint of red on his cheeks? Nah, you’re probably imagining it.

“Whatever, deny it all you want, but that doesn’t change the truth.” You start gliding away again. “I’ll catch up with you later, man. Gotta disinfect this shit.” You leave him standing in the yellow room, surrounded by the various animals.

 --

Three hours, ten minutes, and four seconds pass. John is asleep in his room. You finished cleaning off the flower hours ago, but you didn’t want to interact with your emotions for the rest of the day, so you just chilled down in the bottom floor of the ship for a while. Does that floor have a special name? It probably does, but you’ve never really been up for learning all the nautical lingo. You hover by his bed for ten seconds to make sure he’s asleep, and then gently place the flower in his hair. You then take a marker that you found in another room, and draw a nice big fat penis on his cheek as insurance. Payback time, Egbert. This is probably a stupid idea, but you don’t give a flying fuck about that right now. Man you wish you had a camera. You pull the covers up to his shoulders because the dumb idiot kicked them off in his sleep. Afraid he’ll wake up, you retreat back to your nest to draw another comic.

What the hell are you doing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John calls Davesprite "Dave."  
> Called it.
> 
> Also, sorry it took so long for this chapter to go up! This is turning out to be a longer story than I originally expected. Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 3: Caw Confessional

“Flying solo is the only thing I’ve ever known,

“But lately I’ve been feeling that I can’t go it alone,

“What’s the reason for the change of heart I’ve been feeling,

“Reeling wheeling dealing with the notion that I’m not my own,

“I belong to the air, the breath, the wind, the sky,

“It’s the only reason now I even fucking fly.”

“Glub?”

“I can’t even rhyme his name, he has absolutely no flow,

“Doesn’t matter cause somehow he’s still my best bro,

“It’s even more pathetic since he’s not a fucking homo,

“Shit. Now I’ve said it, I’ve been cornered with no place to go,

“I’m in love with the Heir of Breath, but I can’t ever let him know.”

“Glub glub.”

Sometimes salamanders are the best audience. That’s because only about half of them ever know what you’re saying. You’re about 95% sure that this one knows shit.

There’s a knock behind you. Wait that’s the sound of a human knocking on a door frame to enter an embarrassing situation politely. That is not the sound of a nakodile running into said doorframe. You know because that happened twenty-two minutes ago. Oh, shit. You spin around. Shit did John hear all of that? You’re going to throw up. You don’t even know if you can throw up, but you’re going to.

Oh. It’s Jade.

“Davesprite, did you just say what I thought you said?”

Fuck she heard it. You tell yourself to stay calm and say nothing. Time pulses slowly through your veins until you think of a response. “Oh, you heard that? Man, Rose has been bugging me to write a rap for her to confess to John with for months.” Maybe this will work. Setting aside the fact that you can’t even talk to Rose at the moment.

Jade gives you a skeptical look and crosses her arms. Her ears swivel back. “You’re an idiot, did you know that? There’s no way you can even communicate with Rose right now!”

Well shit. You should’ve known she’d see through that. Since she’s part devil dog. “Haven’t you heard of twin telepathy? It’s a thing that happens sometimes.” You’re not giving up on this lie though. You won’t put your hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above your door. You will go down with this ship.

Jade just shakes her head without changing her expression. “No.”

You groan softly. “Caw.”

“That was not an answer.”

“You have no fucking idea what caw means, ok Jade? Caw is a very important expression to crows, it means basically everything. How did you not know that.” Yes you can distract her by putting on airs. It’s perfect. You look around for backup from your new salamander friend, Snewt Dogg, but he’s disappeared already. Damn it.

“Davesprite, do you really like John like that?”

“Cawwwww. Caw cawwwww.” You are planning your escape. You could totally make it through the doorway before she noticed, even though your wing hasn’t fully healed yet. When you were still human you were getting pretty damn good at flashstepping, and that isn’t a thing that has changed just because you don’t have legs. It’s a good thing you’re wearing your shades, even though they still have paint on the side. Otherwise she’d be able to see you studying the doorway. You are not going to fuck up this escape.

“That is not even an answer, Davesprite!!” She puts her hands on her hips and huffs. Sometimes she and Egbert act really similar, and it’s obnoxious. You have no intentions of answering her question, at least not in English. And you’re not even sorry.

In three milliseconds, you’ve flown past her and through the doorway. It’s probably futile. You know if she wanted you to answer her she could just do the spacey thing and pull you back into the room, but you don’t care. She can force you back into the room but she can’t force you to talk.

You think she gets the gist of it, anyway. You keep flying until you’ve reached the back of the ship and then drape yourself over the back rail. It’s for ironic purposes, ok? Jeeze you have never been this ironically embarrassed in your life. Especially since it’s minus the irony.

It’s been forty five hours since you put that flower in his hair. It was probably a dumb thing to do, and you know it. He hasn’t really said anything about it to you about it really. In fact, you haven’t seen much of him. Maybe he got bored of you. Well. That didn’t take long, really. It’s partially your fault though, since you’ve been doing your best to avoid him until you put a lid on all those emotions you’ve been having. You can’t chill like bros if you have too many feelings, especially since John has the emotional range of a three-year-old.

You draw your sword and inspect it. Why do you keep it with you all the time? You don’t need it on this ship anyway. There isn’t anything dangerous on here, unless the turtles finally decide to rebel. That’ll never happen, though. Not if the various pairs of Groucho Marx glasses that John placed around the ship yesterday have anything to say about it.

Maybe you should just throw this away. It is kind of morbid, keeping a sword sticking out of you all the time. Not that it hurts, or something. You were created with this sword as a part of you, anyway. Well, the sprite part of you was. You’re still having trouble deciding what you are, exactly. Right now you’re thinking you’re mostly a dumbass who got caught rapping a stupid love confession with a salamander by your best friend’s sister. How much dumber can you get than that? You’d be hard pressed to find anything to top it.

“There you are, Dave!”

Jesus what is it with people and sneaking up with you today? You roll over, still putting most of your weight on the railing and dropping the sword on the floor. It’s John, to no surprise. After all, Jade knows you don’t want to talk to her, and she sometimes has common sense enough to avoid you when you’re pissed off. You have no idea where she gets it from, but you’re not complaining. John, on the other hand, has no such common sense.

He’s just standing there, and you’re just hovering on the edge of the entire ship, but it’s no big deal. You won’t let this turn into a feelings dump. You got your feelings out 2.54 minutes ago, so you’re good for the day. You’re officially cool again. “Sup, man.”

“You put the flower in my hair the other day, and I haven’t seen you since.” He looks like he’s trying to decide between being upset and being amused. And he has his damn hood up again. You mentally shake your head at him. He is such a dweeb.

Too bad you were ready for that question. “Yeah, man. Shit was so ironic, it was off the charts.” You rest your arms on the rail and stretch your wings out, smirking. You are so good at being casual. Jesus you should teach a class on this or something. Too bad that would be way too unironic for you to consider ever doing that. “Did you like the drawing? I thought you could use some balls since you don’t have any. Either that or you needed a visual representation of how much of a dick you are. I’ve got plenty of reasons. Take your fucking pick.”

“That took forever to wash off, asshole.” He’s starting to grin, now that he’s sufficiently reassured that you were not being homosexual at all when you put the flower in his hair. You knew talking about irony and telling him he was a dick would work. You practiced lying through your teeth 20 hours ago, so you were a pro at the excuse.

“Maybe it’ll make you think twice before you prank me again.” You shrug, keeping the smirk affixed on your face. You stop stretching out your wings, though. That’s still a little uncomfortable. “It’s like you forget I don’t sleep or something.”

“You don’t?” He looks legitimately surprised. Holy balls he actually did forget. For some reason you weren’t expecting that, but if you think about it, you really should have been. “Then what’s the nest for?” He sits down cross-legged and picks up the point of his hood to play with. You could swear the thing grows and shrinks.

“Irony, Egbert. If I slept in it, the irony would be entirely ruined.” You also sit on the ground and face him. You really built it mostly out of boredom, plus it is pretty comfortable. You do like to lounge on it sometimes.

“Oh, that makes sense, I guess.” He doesn’t look too sure about it. It’s like he doesn’t like to remember how different you are, and he changes the subject. “I was thinking of doing another prank!” Of course, pranking is a safe subject. “I need to outprank Nanna!” Ok there is no way that’s happening. That woman is part clown, for christ’s sake.

“Dude, come on, you’ve never been able to do that. You’re just gonna lose out on your prankster’s gambit.” You look down and you’re suddenly struck by how messy your feathers are. Jesus how long have you been going around looking like this? You start to preen with your hands because looking unkempt will never, ever be cool. You’re going to blame your stupid emotions for distracting you.

“I’ll get her one day. Dave, are you picking bugs out of your feathers?” He grimaces and drops the tail of his hood. “That’s gross.”

“There aren’t any bugs in my feathers, idiot. Do you see any bugs? I’m just fixing them so they don’t look so jank.” Part of you is trying to peck at them even though you don’t have a beak. That part of you is stupid and you’re ignoring it. You were stupid for using a dead bird to prototype, but you think it would be worse to be part smuppet or something. Oh god, that would’ve been disgusting. You wouldn’t have known how to live with yourself. “Gotta look my best because let’s face it, I’m the best looking one on this ship.” Orange wings, sword and all. Wait where is your sword?

You bolt upright and look around. Shit. It didn’t fall off the ship, did it? “Shit, where is it? Fuck.” You can’t see it. It’s gone. Fuck! You’re going to panic. That sword is your only means of defense! You feel yourself start to puff up.

“Uh, Dave? What’s wrong?” You can’t see his face because you’re scanning the ground, but you can tell he’s not sure how to react to you. Actually you’re not sure why you’re letting yourself freak out. Must be the goddamn bird instincts again. Sometimes they’re too ridiculous for you to override them with logic.

“My _sword_. It’s gone.” How does your voice sound this calm? You’re practically crawling around on the ground and your good wing is flapping and there are feathers are going everywhere.

“You mean this sword?”

You sit up and stare at him. There it is, in his hand. The stupid kid probably captchalogued it while you weren’t looking. He’s grinning and you don’t know whether to be relieved that you didn’t lose it or pissed that he was hiding it from you. For an instant, you think you see a feather or two in between his fingers before they disappear. Did he just take your feathers? What the hell, Egbert.

“You dick. Give me that.” You snatch the sword back and push it through your stomach again. You’ll get rid of it later.

“Isn’t that uncomfortable?” John is studying the sword again. You’re weirdly aware of the way his eyes comb your body, but you don’t let on that you notice.

“This sword is part of me,” you answer nonchalantly, “If you didn’t notice that. I don’t think it can hurt me.” You’ve wondered in the past about why you can just stick a lethal weapon through yourself without it even making you bleed. Just another reminder that you’re an outsider, and not even close to human anymore.

“That’s kind of cool, though, isn’t it?” He smiles, showing all his teeth. “That’s like the most badass way to carry a sword ever.” Looks like he’s totally comfortable around you anyway. That’s pretty cool. “Hey, Dave, you have something on your face. Oh wait, it’s just a smile!” He leans forward to poke your cheek and you move away, dodging his finger.

“No face-touching privileges, kid. You haven’t put in your application yet, much less gone through training.” You push his hand away and squeeze it a little. “Put your paperwork in first, and then we can talk.” You let go of his hand before his “no homo!” flags go up. You’re going to stay under the radar as long as possible.

“I did all the paperwork a long time ago, Dave. At the same time I put in the ‘best friend’ application! It was under clause 3, I’m pretty sure.” He laughs and leans back on his hands.

“You know what, you might be right.” You smooth your hair as you calm down from that mini panic attack you had. Now your feathers are messed up again too. “That part is definitely still being discussed with the board, though.  Snewt Dogg and I need to look over all the applicants’ résumés before I get back to you.” You nod once, the universal signal of cool.

Instead of saying anything, he reaches out and places his palm against your cheek. “What now, Dave? Your paperwork is stupid and not my boss.”

"Caw."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Critiques are always appreciated. Thank you. :)  
> Fandom secret, I wrote this story so I could make Dave monologue song lyrics and name salamanders after his favorite rappers.


	5. Chapter 4: Avoiding Answers

“Snewt, get back here, you little fucker, that’s John’s room.” How the fuck do those amphibians move so fast? You chase Snewt into John’s room and grab him. There’s no way you’re letting him get away this time. It is the equivalent of the middle of the night and John has been asleep for 2 hours and 08 minutes, and you have no intentions of waking him up.

John shifts in bed and you look over toward him. Wait, what? You’re floating over before you even realize what you’re doing. Two orange feathers lie on the pillow beside his head, and his hand is resting on them. Your heart stops. He is sleeping with your feathers. He’s holding onto them in his sleep. Oh god, your heart is beating again and time is slowing. You don’t know what to do or say or think.

Snewt Dogg is gone. You don’t even care. If John is sleeping with your feathers, what does that mean? Is it a homosexual thing? You can’t get yourself to imagine this somehow being platonic at all. You lean down, your lips hovering inches above his forehead. No, you really shouldn’t do this. Your heart is beating too hard, too fast, too loudly. He’ll wake up. He’ll find you here. You gently brush your lips against the skin above his left eyebrow. Before you move away, you pop the top off the marker and write “caught you” on his cheek. You even repeat it backwards on his forehead so he can read it in the mirror. You’re so fucking considerate.

You quickly abscond, and drop your marker in the process like it’s some kind of glass slipper, but you’re not going back for it. He’s making it hella difficult for you to stay cool about this emotion stuff. Maybe you should avoid him again. Jade would probably let you explore one of the worlds again, not that you’re really interested in that. You know all about the planets anyway. You perch on your nest and stick your sword through a smuppet.

First he touches your face like it’s public property, and then he starts sleeping with your feathers? Is he just teasing you? What the fuck is he thinking? Is he even thinking at all? That’s actually probably what it is, knowing him.

You stare down at your hands, flexing them a few times. Maybe this is just another really elaborate prank to try and fill up his prankster’s gambit. Yeah, the more you think about it, the more sense it makes. There’s no way he’d ever think homosexual-like things for you, of all people – of all things. Which one are you? You look at your fingers and bring them close to your face to inspect your nails. They’re starting to look like claws again. Where’s that nail file?

You rummage around in your nest and eventually find it. It’s actually pretty surprising that you haven’t lost it in this huge shitpile. Stupid goddamn bird claws. You are not dealing with this right now. Not while thinking about the now teasingly distinct possibility of Egbert having a homocrush on you. You’re pretty sure this would be a lot easier if you were still human. Your nails get filed down again and you toss the file away.

You’re not really sure how to react to the feather thing. You start to wonder how LOHAC is doing lately.

 

LOHAC, it turns out, is still really hot. You’re not sure what you were expecting. There are more nakodiles and they’re driving you insane. Four days, ten hours, three minutes, and 41 seconds of flying around on this place, and you’re bored again. But at least it’s given you a chance to clear your head. The verdict is in: feathers don’t mean anything. He was probably playing with them before bed or something and he just happened to fall asleep before throwing them away. It’s a lot easier to understand his actions when you’re not freaking out about having feelings and stuff.

You told Jade to give you 120 hours before bringing you back on the ship, and you have fourteen hours left. Even though you can feel the seconds tick by, and you know that they’re moving steadily, they seem to drag. This is going to be a long fourteen hours.

You perch on the edge of a cliff to watch the lava. Even though you’re bored, you can’t deny that your planet was definitely the most badass out of all of them. You never really appreciated it while you were running around killing shit, but it was hard to appreciate anything back then. Wait, you’re not going to get all upset about that timeline. Nope, not a thing you’re going to do.

You find yourself missing John.  But you knew this would happen: you haven’t seen him in over five days (128 hours exactly). It’s for the best, though. You needed to get a hold of yourself before you ended up screwing everything over with your best friend. And by screwing everything up you mean you’d probably do something stupid like kissing him.

You lurch forward as a sudden reeling sensation rocks your entire body. Wait, you’re back on the ship. What the hell? Jade is standing in front of you with a pissed-off look on her face. Uh oh, what did you do? She’s practically growling.

“Whoa Jade, I know I haven’t given you any dog treats in a couple of days, but calm down?” The joke is that Jade doesn’t like dog treats. You know this because you and John gave her dog treats and saw her dump them off the side of the ship. It was actually pretty funny.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to LOHAC because you saw John with your feathers and you were trying to avoid him!” Oh fuck. How did she know that? Did John say something to her? Why would he even tell her about that?

Her arms are crossed over her chest and her ears are swiveled back and pressed almost flat against her head. One of her feet taps impatiently against the ground as she waits for an explanation from you. But you’re not going to give her one. Why the fuck would she expect you to explain yourself to her? She already knows that you’re a big dumb homosexual for John, and there’s no way in hell you’re saying it out loud again. Those turtles have looser lips than a cheap prostitute, and that’s an accomplishment, considering turtles don’t even _have_ lips. You can’t be too careful. The silence stretches past the thirty-second mark.

Wait, what if the fucking salamander already told him? That would be just your luck. You’re such a dumbass, why would you rap about your feelings to a salamander from John’s planet? You need to think these things through. It takes every ounce of self-control you have to keep yourself from grinding your palm into your forehead.

It’s pretty clear that she’s frustrated with you by the tension around her mouth. And the way her eyebrows would actually be covering her eyes if she turned them down any more. “Ok, since you’re being dumb and won’t cooperate,” she grumbles, “I’m going to force you to talk to him.”

“No, wait, Jade, that’s-” You don’t even get a chance to finish your sentence before you’re lurching through space again. God damn it, this teleporting stuff is going to make you nauseous. It has your feathers all ruffled up and you hate when that happens. You flatten them down again before you look around. Hey, she dropped you in John’s room. You have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to turn out terrible.

Where is that kid anyway? You float around the room, cawing a few times for a response, but there isn’t one. “John?” You pick up one of his pillows and look under it even though there’s no way he’s under the pillow you know that. The feathers aren’t there, and you’re kind of disappointed. But it’s not a huge surprise: he probably threw them away when you caught him with them. It would’ve been nice if he still had them. “Egbert, where the hell are you? Jesus, Jade needs to get her shit together before she inflicts an unwanted transplanetary teleportation on a dude, because there is no fucking point to me being in this empty room. “

You set the pillow down and sit down on the edge of the bed because why not? He’s not here, and it wouldn’t matter if he was. What the hell was Jade’s problem, anyway? You never tell her things, this isn’t a new pattern of behavior or anything. Man, that lack of feathers is really bugging you. With only a moment’s hesitation, you pluck a single feather from your healthy wing and lay it on his pillow. Pulling it out only stings a little. It totally stands out against the blue of the case but you don’t give a shit.

You lie on your stomach and rest your head on your arms with a sigh. There probably isn’t a point in leaving the room, because if Jade sees you she’ll just yank you back. Where the fuck is Egbert, anyway? This is ridiculous. You pick up your feather and spin it between your fingers. “What a fucking idiot. What am I even doing?”

“Yeah, I’m just going to repeat your question.” That’s John’s voice. Your head snaps up and you drop your feather. There he is, carrying Casey. What if she talked to Snewt Dogg? What if she talked to John? Can she even talk? “I thought you said you didn’t need to sleep.”

Time to make up some bullshit. “It’s irony, Egbert. I’m a feathery orange asshole, that’s almost as ironic as you can get.” You notice the deep blue color of the sheets again and grab the top sheet. “But this is even better, it’s like oranges and blueberries over here. I’m a fucking fruit salad.”

“You look really stupid with that blanket on your head.” He giggles softly, but you can’t see his face, because you covered yours on purpose. You don’t want him to know you’re blushing.

“You clearly need more lessons on irony. If I hadn’t already gained all the cool levels, I’d gain like ten right now, just because of the blanket. I’m the fucking mayor of cool.” A better idea pops into your head. “No, fuck that, I’m the emperor. I rule the entire empire of Coolitude, population five million, seven hundred thirty-five thousand, four hundred and one. Definitely not you though.” Your voice is kind of soft and you’re playing with your hands underneath the cover of the sheet. It must have been recently washed because it smells good, kind of like him - ok you’re going to get creepy, this is not good.

“Are you done mumbling into the blanket yet?”

You tear the sheet away from your face. “F-u, Egbert. I-” The world never finds out what you are because at that instant something cold and rubbery hits your face with an audible _smack_. It bounces off your cheek and plops on the ground.

What the fuck? Is that a whoopee cushion? What the fuck? Did John just throw a whoopee cushion at your face? How the fuck did he mess up a basic prank like that? Wait, is his face red, or is that just you?

“John?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took so long for me to update! For some reason this chapter was really hard to write. (thanks to everyone who helped me edit it haha)


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